Part II (Stereoscope): Improvisation/Composition in the Nature of the Beast (original) (raw)

After overviewing that political-psychological location, but before "peopling" it with FMP in the chapters to come, we survey yet another site on the discursive map: the literature (mostly musicological, some anthropological and other) on improvisation. Like the German discourse on German free jazz, albeit larger, this body of literature is new and small enough to consider almost comprehensively, and to seek from it a role for this study as informed as possible by the whole of the discourse. "Improvisation," as both a practical and theoretical issue, has the potential to kindle and anchor a full-blown interdisciplinary discourse. As mentioned in Chapter Four, it has begun to engage English-language scholars (as has, again, the concept of "performance" that moved from theater to cultural studies) beyond its identity as an aspect of an art form; it has begun to do so concurrently, naturally enough, with the increase of English-language literature on post-free-improvisational issues in music (also mentioned, in Chapter Three, and identified as an international, rather than American, discourse—the most interesting parts of which, from Australia, we will glimpse here). Improvisation has gone far toward demonstrating the human capacity to constructively engage cultural situations of turmoil and change, and to make the best of—even redirect and overcome—oppressive and repressive conditions. Its role in the jazz tradition has been both challenging and restorative: it has helped both African- and European American cultures negotiate an American balance between their two situations (Peretti 1992); and it has bridged the gap between the literacy of Western European and the orality of West African cultures (Schuller 1968; Murray 1973, 1976; Sidran 1981; Berliner 1994). A glance at the more recent studies of improvisation that themselves have summary overviews and updates of the literature on it will best serve here future research and discussion. I present the pith of those and briefly relate their relevance to my approach to FMP (they were selected for that relevance, after my fieldwork); I glance at other works and lines of interest in passing; I end the survey on a work (Hall 1992) that speaks most to my own relationship with my subject, to pick up on my opening pages' glances at childhood and musical time. We end the Introduction as a whole with a short muse on current ethnographic methodological thinking and practice, within which I situate my own; and with a synopsis of Part II's chapters for their breakdown and organization of information about FMP and its artists.